


Hearts Be Light: Ten Days of Suron Drabbles

by shanibugi



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Holidays, New Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanibugi/pseuds/shanibugi
Summary: Selected moments set during that glowy, doleful time at the end of the year when beginnings and endings blur together. || One drabble a day until 2019. Mostly non-au, but who knows.





	1. In which merch makes us emo.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so terrified to write this for a number of reasons,* but I really want to write something for this ship before the year ends. So here are the rules I've set for myself in order to get this going.
> 
> 1\. Each drabble should be a thousand words maximum.  
> 2\. I have to post it before I go to sleep.  
> 3\. I am not allowed to edit the piece from the day before.
> 
> Originally, this was just going to be a set of unconnected drabbles, but it's too hard to reframe my brain everyday so they're basically just imagined moments from each day from December 22 to December 31. Enjoy?
> 
> *Not least of which is that Sujin is not an idol (she isn't in the tags) and I don't know if I'm allowed to write about her, but I figured if people can write self-insert fanfic, I'm still in the clear??? Please let me know how this works.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You ever have those moments when you’re busy living your life then you see something that sends you into a whirlwind of memory and then you start crying? Yeah.

Every year, she promises herself she won’t get trapped in the Christmas rush, but every year, there’s work to finish, friends to catch up with. Small things that need to be organized and made pretty and presentable. It all swallows up her time until it’s three days before Christmas and suddenly she’s wedged between two women grabbing for the same pair of mittens.

They’re hideous, but she doesn’t have much of a choice at this point. Sujin grabs the mittens and triumphantly slips out of the tangle of bodies at the clearance bin before either of the ladies realize that they’d lost. Now she just needs to buy her baby niece something to play with (or probably chew on, given that she probably doesn’t have all her teeth yet), then she’d be done.

She wanders around the store, dodging distressed and wild-eyed shoppers until she comes to a display in one section in the second floor surrounded by a group of girls. Laid out on the table are characters printed on keychains, pens, notebooks, all pastel colors and big eyes. Over the speakers, a familiar song is playing.

She can’t help it; her heart still leaps a bit when she hears his voice.

She still forgets sometimes that they’re a thing now. In the early days, it felt strange and surreal. It was like she’d been seeing a ghost for years and everyone only just started believing in her. A part of her wanted to say I told you so, and still another part of her felt strangely protective, like she had to share something that had only been hers for so long. What would all these people do with something that was so precious?

But then she saw how happy they all were. The look of pure joy and disbelief on their faces whenever they heard their songs being played at a random cafe or they saw their faces at a bus stop. She still remembers him crying in front of that sold out crowd because he felt like he wasn’t enough. And now people are buying plush toys and skincare products so they could get a card with his picture on it. 

She picks up a stuffed toy from the display. She’d never been particularly good at sharing--Minhyun could attest to that--but she’s willing to renege if it means that he would always know that he’s enough and so much more.

Besides, not everything has to be shared. She’s very proud to be Minhyun’s sister (always have been, no matter what he tells everyone) but it’s not like people have to know the rest. There are still some things she knows are just for her, things she’s happy to keep to herself.

She walks off to pay for her niece’s new toy, wondering if they were going to give her a free photocard with it.


	2. In which texting is hard.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen, you know you love someone after you’ve scrolled to the deepest pits of their SNS accounts. You've seen that gross photo of them from freshman year in high school and you still think they’re super pretty.

“God, why don’t you just text her already?” Dongho calls as he drifts across the living room with a toothbrush in his mouth and a towel slung over his shoulder. Aron doesn’t even look up from his phone. He’d been slumped on his stomach on the sofa for at least two hours. He and the sofa are now one.

Sure, texting her is probably a better alternative than scrolling 32 weeks back into her Instagram, but this way requires the least amount of thinking and gives him the most chances to see her face.

What would he tell her anyway? “I miss you”? He’d always believed that the general rule of thumb is not to send anything that makes even himself cringe. They’ve only been going out for a month. He doesn’t want her to break up with him already.

A shadow looms over his phone screen, currently displaying a picture of the breakfast Sujin ate last year while she was on vacation. “If you’re going to pine, at least do it in your own room,” Dongho says. “We can’t watch tv with you lying there.”

“Fine, I’m getting up,” Aron says, not moving.

A second later, he feels a weight come down on him so suddenly that the air is forced out of his lungs and he yelps in surprise. In one swift motion, Minki, now sitting comfortably on the small of his back, had snatched his phone out of his hands. 

“You text us weird memes all the time, why is this so difficult for you?” Minki tuts in annoyance. His fingers are already busy typing. “자기야 뭐해떵?”* he coos in eerie similarity to something he’s probably done on tv before. “There. Sent. Thank me later.”

“It’s different with her,” Aron says. He tries to grab his phone back but he knows it’s useless in his current position. “She isn’t into that kind of thing.”

“It’s like she hasn’t even met you,” says Minki before he drops the phone back into Aron’s hands.

He hurriedly checks his messages and releases a breath upon seeing that Minki did send a message that thankfully wasn’t as cringey as he made it out to be. He just asked what she was doing.

Suddenly, his phone gets a notification. Aron stands up abruptly, knocking Minki off his back and onto the floor. He ignores the string of threats and reads the text.

 _Wrapping last minute Christmas presents._ There’s a picture of an assortment of wrapping paper and boxes sprawled across a large table.

He walks out of the living room, vaguely registering Dongho and Minki’s exaggerated sounds of relief behind him, and gets another notification. _What about you?_

“Instagram stalking you, the usual,” he says under his breath.

 _Watching tv with the guys._ He thinks a bit then sends another message. _I haven’t seen you in a while._

The reply comes quickly. _I saw you though._

What?

The next message is a link to a video of him performing during last week’s concert.

That’s right. She came to see them. He always does his best on stage but the thought of her being out there made him feel like some otherworldly light had possessed him and he could do no wrong. There couldn’t be a better way to end the year. Still, he wishes there wasn’t a crowd or a stage or a phone screen separating them.

_Yeah, but we didn’t really spend time together._

_It’s okay. I can wait._

Oh. Maybe he was the only one who wanted to get a little closer.

_Mel misses you though, so don’t take too long, okay?_

A picture of her and her (their?) dog. Mel is wearing a Santa hat and there is a red ribbon in Sujin’s hair. She’s smiling, and he finds himself overcome with joy to think that it isn’t for a post or anything. It’s just for him.

_I won’t. I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm much happier with this drabble than yesterday's, seeing as I wrote this one at a comfortable pace and not at three in the morning after taking care of my drunk sister.
> 
> *Translation note: I didn’t romanize this because it’s so cringe, but the hangeul reads, “Jagiya, mwohaeddong?” which is an aegyo-filled way of saying “Darling/sweetheart/term of endearment, what are you doing?” Ack. I didn’t think Minki would be mean enough to sabotage Aron’s relationship that way (I want to believe that all of Nuest support this ship while also being slightly disgusted by it in a brotherly sort of way), so he probably just said “Mwohaesseo?”/”What are you doing?” like normal.


	3. In which there is a party and, of course, wine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I broke my own concept, so let’s all just have an office party au.

It’s way too early to be having a third glass of wine, but the way the night is going, it’s all she could do to stop herself from getting an entire bottle.

Office parties always seem to release the sleaziest alter-egos of normally sane, pleasant people who usually had decent table manners. That part she can handle. The wandering hands, casually sexist comments, and karaoke songs that seem to go on forever are all in a day’s work. But tonight there’s something she doesn’t know how to deal with.

Technically, she doesn’t have to deal with it at all. For all everyone knows, Aron is single. Single people are free to flirt with other single people. And that’s exactly what’s happening, and it’s totally normal, and she doesn’t at all notice those very obvious attempts from that tech support girl to put her hand on his arm. She takes another long sip from her glass, already half-empty.

The sip is so long that when she puts the glass back down, he’s standing right in front of her. To his credit, he looks slightly apologetic, like he knows he’s doing something stupid.

“Hi. Having fun?” she asks as innocently as she can, but she knows he can hear the edge in her voice.

“I’m all right,” he says. “You look really pretty.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you think so.” She doesn’t want to be mean, but it keeps coming out of her and the wine is making it difficult for her to filter her words.

His face turns serious then. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For all of that. And for what’s going to happen next.”

He reaches his hand out, and for a moment, she thinks he’s going to grab her. But instead he aims lower, knocking the wineglass out of her hand and spilling a good part of it all over her dress.

“What the fuck?”

His excuses come in a long, unbreakable chain, and she lets them wash over her, not hearing anything. She doesn’t mind the dress, really, but now everybody’s staring at them. Isn’t that the opposite of what they wanted to happen?

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I’ll help you clean up, I’ll pay to get it cleaned, I’m really sorry.”

She lets herself be ushered out of her seat, out of the karaoke place, until they’re on the sidewalk, outside the building. It’s a little past ten and there are Christmas lights strung across buildings. Everything is flourescent. She wants to yell at him, but she doesn’t. She leans against the side of the building and looks down at the dark red spot across her chest. 

“You want to tell me what the fuck you were thinking?”

“You looked like you needed an excuse to get out of there.” He just stands there and looks at her. In the yellow streetlight, she silently acknowledges that he looks kind of perfect, but given recent events, she didn’t feel like saying it out loud. 

“I want you to know that I really don’t like you right now,” she says.

“That’s fair,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I still think you look really pretty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t particularly know where I was going with this one. Sujin POV days always seem to coincide with busy days in my personal life, and I'm always half-dead while writing them. :( Since the goal of this little project is to write a drabble everyday, I decided to just give myself a break from the concept instead of obsessing over it and end up missing a day. I just really hope that by the 31st I can write at least one Sujin POV that isn't terrible.


	4. In which there is so much fluff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Christmas ham of all Christmas tropes: mistletoe.

She presses the doorbell and hears it echo from the outside. She plunges her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat. Normally, it would have taken a bulldozer to excavate her from beneath three layers of blankets in this weather, but the thought of finally being within touching distance with a boy she hadn’t seen in weeks was apparently enough to do the trick.

The door opens and she tries not to look too much like an idiot. She always feels like tiny fluffy creatures are bouncing around inside her chest when she sees him after a long time. She thought she’d outgrow it when they started dating, but if anything, the creatures just got fluffier and bouncier. And is it possible that he just looks more attractive lately? It’s not her fault that he’s finally decided to show his forehead more often.

She mentally shakes herself. 

“Hi,” she says. No, she _chirps_. She usually doesn’t chirp.

“Hi,” he replies with a big smile on his face. “I missed you.”

That. Why does he have to do that? They haven’t been together that long and already it’s so easy for him. The boys she dated before would’ve just nodded and let her in. For some reason, he isn’t doing that. He has this look on his face, like he’s expecting her to do something.

She looks beyond him into the entryway and asks, “Can I come in?”

“Uh yeah, before that. Do you notice anything? Like, right above you?”

She looks up. There’s a plastic ornament on the door that says “Merry Christmas” in sparkly red letters. Right above it, along the top edge of the frame, was some sort of Christmas twig with small white plastic berries.

“You decorated. Good job?” she adds, still unsure about what she’s supposed to say.

He laughs and she tries to calm her heart bunnies down. He points to the plant. “Do you know what that is?”

Slowly, it dawns on her that it’s not just a Christmas twig. It’s _the_ Christmas twig.

“Oh. Yeah. I think I do. It’s not really a thing here though, so...”

“I mean, no one’s around,” he begins. “The others are all out. Wouldn’t really hurt. Especially if you were going to do it anyway.”

It isn’t cold in the hallway anymore. Her hands are out of her pockets and don’t know what to do with themselves. She’s scrambling for words. “Yeah, but isn’t it, kind of--”

“Yeah, it kind of is,” he says, smiling. “You should do it anyway.”

He’s clearly enjoying himself. The bunnies in her chest are hyped up on his smile and going crazy. She doesn’t realize that she’s smiling too. Why does it always feel like she isn’t control when she’s with him? 

“Okay. Step out here.”

He does.

“Close your eyes.”

She takes a deep breath.

Then carefully sidesteps him, walks past the open door, and closes it behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I want them to kiss too, but it would take another 500+ words of fluffiness to get there. Maybe we'll get a part two, maybe we won't, but don't worry they will definitely kiss (at the very least) before this project is over. Also, I just realized that I didn't mention their names in this entire thing, so this is basically a (y/n) fic now lol.


	5. In which there are questionable cookies.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet like a good sugar cookie.

Aron drops a large plate of cookies in the middle of the table. The boys gather around it like mosquitoes. Each of them takes one without hesitation. A moment of silence while they chew. Dongho is the first to comment.

“Why is it all mushy?” He watches the cookie crumble in his hand.

“Sujin didn’t want to wait three hours to set the batter,” Aron says pleasantly. “How is it?”

“It’s really sweet,” Jonghyun says, visibly fighting a grimace.

“She also put an extra cup of sugar in it, because we, uh, lost track of time.”

A collective groan of disgust erupts from the group.

Minki drops his cookie and gives him a look. “We don’t need to know what you two are doing in our kitchen, but we’re hoping we could at least get decent cookies out of it.”

“I’m texting Minhyun,” Jonghyun says, like a child announcing that he was about to tell teacher that his classmates were being noisy. His phone is already out.

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this? Didn’t you say anything?” Dongho asks.

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Aron shrugs. “It didn’t seem like it would make a difference if I did. She does what she wants.”

The three of them look at each other. They know there’s nothing they can do for him. He’s too far gone. When Sujin comes into the room five minutes later and asks them about the cookies, they all nod and smile and tell her they taste brilliant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the halfway mark!
> 
> Since this project started, I’ve been really anxious about releasing what are essentially crappy, unfinished first drafts into the world. I put a lot of pressure on myself to write pieces with a lot of description and emotional depth and characterization and all that shit, but that's not what this is about. This is about writing a few cute scenes and indulging my happy delusion of believing this ship is real. So I'll try to focus on that and just have fun with it from here on out. :)


	6. In which Minhyun just wants free dinner.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kinda want a chapter where Minhyun rags on Aron about Sujin.” Thanks for the prompt, @Flamie. ^^ Hope I did it justice!

Minhyun’s big takeaway from 2018: Plans backfire. Never count on anything to happen the way you expect them to, because nothing ever does. Nevermind his career trajectory.

Ever since he could remember, Sujin had been pulling the older sister card every time she wanted something from him. He’d done her chores, puppy-sat her dog, picked up takeout in the middle of the night, all because “she’s older and she said so.” When he met Aron, he was thrilled to have someone older than his older sister on his side, someone who could finally make Sujin do what _he_ wants for a change.

It just so happened that they both want to date each other. Fucking great.

It’s not that he’s opposed to their relationship, even if it is kind of weird. He’s actually kind of happy that they decided to date people he already knows that he likes, or in the case of his sister, tolerates. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, after all. And he knows so much about these two particular devils that finally, maybe he could use it to his advantage.

He isn’t about to try anything with Sujin. That’s some expert level shit. Baby steps. He walks into the living room to find Aron in his usual place on the couch.

“Hey hyung, isn’t it your turn to buy us dinner?”

“Uh, no,” Aron said, fiddling with his phone. “Isn’t it your turn since you know, we never see you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have come here at all if I didn’t get like ten texts about how you and my sister were making out in our kitchen.” Minhyun tries not to stick his tongue out. Maybe there are some things about this relationship that he’s opposed to.

“We were not!”

“No one believes you!” a voice from the adjacent room protests.

Aron glares in the voice’s general direction. Minhyun can’t help but agree with the disembodied voices of his brethren.

“First of all--gross. I didn’t give my blessing to this relationship for you to desecrate our home.”

“You don’t even live here anymore.”

“You’re forgetting that I will be back in--” He mentally does the math. “--five days. And I don’t want to open a closet door to see something I’d rather not.”

“Do you think people actually make out in closets, you poor boy?”

“Not the point! What I’m saying is you better control yourself.” He stops himself from adding “mister” to the end of that sentence.

“Sure, mom,” Aron deadpans.

Minhyun takes a deep breath, remembers his goal, and tries to get back on track.

“Look, the least you can do is get us some decent food after you’ve taken advantage of our kitchen like this.”

Aron puts down his phone and looks him in the eye. “Fine,” he says.

“Really?” Minhyun blinks in disbelief. 

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Minhyun walks to the hallway to get the others, smug in his victory. His baby steps were successful. He didn’t even have to resort to blackmail.

In the living room, Aron is back on his phone. There’s a new message on his screen from his girlfriend.

_Told you he’d shut up if you bought him dinner._


	7. In which we talk a bit about growing up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sujin gets a phone call. Not the sexy kind. The sad kind.

Sujin’s phone rings from her bedside table. The clock beside it says it’s 2:43. She hears the familiar sounds of a mouth trumpet intro. This is the only reason she picks up.

“Hello,” she says sleepily, balancing the phone on her cheek.

“Hey, sorry, did I wake you?” came the voice on the other end. A part of her is relieved, glad even. If it was anyone else, she would have probably turned off her phone right there and then.

“Yeah, you did.” No point being coy. “What is it?”

“Nothing, sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m already awake. Tell me.”

“It’s nothing. I just wanted to check in.”

“Well, that’s nice of you but next time maybe consider that at two-thirty in the morning, I’m probably at home. Sleeping.”

Silence on the other end. She sits up.

“Hey, didn’t you guys have a thing today?” she says, trying to get the conversation going. They’re already awake. Might as well. “Congrats on that by the way. I saw it on tv. I liked your hair.”

“Thanks.”

More silence.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says in a voice that clearly means the opposite. “Just sank it that it’s ending, you know?”

There it is. She knows where this conversation is going. She’s already had this talk many times over with her brother, but she still can’t imagine how he must feel. There’s so much uncertainty and fear of the future, but so much happiness and so many things to be grateful for, too. 

“Tell that to Minhyun. He’s been thinking about the end for a while.”

“Yeah, he’s had a real year. I don’t know how he did it. How he’ll keep doing it.”

“I don’t know how any of you do it. All those people saying all those things” 

She wishes she could hold his hand then, and realizes that her voice is so much softer than it usually is. Had her room always been this large and dark and quiet? 

“But you guys are lucky,” she continues, voice still soft. “You grew up to be, well, rockstars. The rest of us just grew up.”

“That sounds kind of nice. I wish I grew up with you.” She hears the smile in his voice. Even if no one can see her, she tries to stifle her own out of reflex. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love this job and I’m so lucky to be in this position, to be given this chance--this _second_ chance--but sometimes, I still wonder. What if nothing changed? What would I have done next?”

She says what he’s thinking. “Would we have grown up together?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we kind of did,” she points out. “We both knew each other existed. We just didn’t really know more than that.”

“I’m so glad we know each other now,” he says. It's so genuine her heart melts.

“Yeah, me too.”

"It's just so easy for all this to be taken away," he says, drifting off.

_Not me,_ she thinks. _They can't take me away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched KBS Daechukje and the last episode of Love Record and Nu’est did their Nu’est thing and made me sad and happy and shit. :( I had a cute one planned for today but oh well, feelings say otherwise.


	8. In which Noah gets to say something.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doggos speak in cuddles.

“Hey Noah, you want to go for a walk?”

_Are you serious, Dad? In this weather?_

He tries to loop the long black rope around me, but I’m too fast for him. I run to the other side of the room and bury my head under my paws. He walks over and looks at me with what he probably thinks is a stern expression.

I give him my best wide-eyed puppy look. It’s effective. I gave him this look that one time he left the cupboard door open and I ate _all_ the treats. The next day, there were shopping bags filled with more treats and I still got cuddled. He can’t say no to this face. He’ll let that rope go in three, two--

“Come on, Noah. We’re going to see your favorite person.”

_Uncle Jonghyun? But he’s right there. We can just go to him._

I go over to stand in the hallway outside of Uncle Jonghyun’s room and bark to get his attention. He’s probably busy playing those flashy tv games. I keep trying to play with him but the controllers don’t have buttons big enough for my paws, so I mostly just watch.

I’m too busy thinking about games that I don’t notice Dad sneak up behind me. He gets the rope around my neck.

I guess I have to pull him outside now. It's really cold and I don’t really want to, but when he goes outside without me, he takes a really long time to come back. I have to come with him or he’ll take forever again. Humans need so much maintenance.

It’s even colder outside, and the ground is slippery so it’s hard to run. I’m sad because I love running. But everything’s all dressed up and pretty so it’s kind of okay. There are so many lights and green plants. I want to sniff them all.

We stop walking. Dad probably met someone he knows and now they’re going to talk for so loooong. See, this is the sort of thing I need to control. He needs to be home so we can cuddle together. I go to the other human so I can tell them nicely to move along, then I see who it is.

_Not fair. That’s_ your _favorite person._

Auntie Sujin reaches down to scratch the back of my head. She gives nice head-scratches, but they’re not cuddles. I pull on the rope but Dad is stuck in place. I get it. When I’m with Uncle Jonghyun, I don’t want to leave him either.

_You got dragged out too?_ Mel-noona is with Auntie Sujin. Since Dad and Auntie Sujin have been around each other so much, Mel-noona and I have become really good friends.

_Yeah, but we’re going back inside right away. We still have a lot of cuddling to do._

_I think the humans want to cuddle each other._

I look up. Dad isn’t my favorite human. He’s just my human, and that makes him more special than anybody. We take care of each other. Sometimes when he’s sad, I don’t know how to do that, but I always do my best. I bark and I cuddle and I take him for walks and we run together until he smiles.

Dad is smiling right now. Auntie Sujin is, too. 

_Does she give nice cuddles?_ I ask Mel-noona.

_The best. But she’s my human, so I like everything about her._

_That’s okay then. I think my human feels the exact same way._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've wanted to do a Noah chapter for a few days now, so yay, I'm happy I finally got to do one. ^^ Partly inspired by this tweet (https://twitter.com/dog_feelings/status/1060322639040917505). The entire @dog_feelings account is a ball of soft, but that tweet really made me cry. Hug your doggos today if you have them!


	9. In which it is cold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sujin's not entirely comfortable with skinship, but she's getting there.

They’re sitting on the floor of his room, half-buried in blankets. There’s a laptop in front of her and a bowl of popcorn between them. She feels like she’s back in high school. Back then, dates were cheap because they were broke students, not because going out in public meant jeopardizing someone’s career. It’s all right with her though. In this version of high school, she gets to date the cute popular boy who sits behind her in English class and plays all the instruments. 

She smiles at the thought and looks over to tell him about her imaginary high school classroom, only to find him nodding off. The movie is barely fifteen minutes in. 

“You okay over there?” she asks, and frees one hand to reach out and poke his shoulder.

“Hmm, yeah,” he mumbles. He shakes his head and blinks himself awake. “I’m okay.”

“Go sleep,” she says. He looks so precious with his head to one side, his hair all messy over his forehead, but she knows he’s probably tired from working everyday, even during the holidays. She leans forward and closes the laptop. “We can watch movies some other time.”

He looks genuinely put out. “But we never get to hang out,” he whines.

Geez, sometimes he still even acts like a high school kid.

“I know,” she begins. “But we can’t really hang out if you’re just going to fall asleep on me.”

“Sure we can.”

He loops his arm around hers and puts his head on her shoulder. The movement is so sudden that she’s suddenly breathless and frozen in place. She mentally scolds herself. They’re dating now. She should stop acting like she’s fifteen and it’s her first time being close to a guy.

“The guys are going to walk in...” she says weakly.

“Eh, they already think we’re doing worse things,” he replies, eyes closed.

His weight feels warm and comfortable. Her bones unlock. She exhales. It feels like she’s melting, like the winter is leaving her body and there is soft hazy lamplight in its place. She closes her eyes too. 

“Your arm’s freezing even under all these blankets.”

He straightens up again, shrugs off the jacket he’s wearing, and puts it around her shoulders. She reaches up to take her hair out from under the jacket. To her surprise, he helps her, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, his fingertips grazing over the sides of her neck and shoulders.

“There,” he says, satisfied. “Now you’re warm and I can sleep. Don’t move too much, okay?”

He lays back down on her shoulder and closes his eyes. Soon, his breathing evens out. Only then does she move her hand under the blankets so she can hold his. She idly strokes each of his fingers over and over, thinking about how she definitely isn’t in high school anymore, until she falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got caught up wrapping gifts, then my siblings decided to order takeout at like one in the morning and eat in my room, so this chapter is a bit delayed. It's literally six in the morning on the 31st right now. Hey, it's D-1 to 2019, can you believe it.


	10. In which there is another party, and we come to the end together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve is for getting drunk or getting kissed, usually both.

He finds her sitting alone at a back table, an empty plate and a drained bottle in front of her. Whoever planned the party had rented out the entire restaurant and he had to jostle through groups of drinkers at varied levels of inebriation to get to her. He knows how late he is by the way she looks at him.

“I waited for you,” she says, her tone almost petulant.

“Sorry, practice ran late. I came here as fast as I could.”

He wishes he had a better excuse, since he’d used this one so many times but it’s the one that’s true. She stands up and tries to walk away from him, but he notices her wobbling in her heels and rushes to grab her arm. He is very late.

“I’m fine,” she says, and clumsily tries to push him away.

He leads her back to her chair, tells her to stay, and goes to get a glass of water. When he comes back, her chin is in both her hands and her hair is all over her face. Instead of sitting opposite her, he drags the chair around beside her and puts the glass of water in her hands. She stares at it. Around them, people roar in merriment.

Suddenly, like an accusation, she says, “It’s hard not seeing you. I have to _look_ at other people.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, but he doesn’t have to say anything because she barrels on.

“I mean, I see them with their boyfriends and I know we can’t do that-- _I know_ \--but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it, you know? Walking outside in public. Eating at a nice cafe. Going to stupid parties without a mask on.”

She waves her hand in front of her, clearly trying to remove the mask across his face. He guides her hand to his ear and helps her take it off, so she can feel like she did it herself. He doubts anyone would recognize him anyway. They’re all too busy nursing beers, flirting, playing drinking games.

“You know I have to google you to find out what you’re doing?” she continues. “Which I hate doing because the internet is a fucking dumpster fire. And it hurts me when people say shit about you because you’re like the best person in my life and some assholes just have nothing better to do than be assholes.”

For a drunk person, she’s startlingly articulate. Her words tear at his heart, like tiny claws. He lifts the glass in her hands to her lips, pushes the hair away from her face.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, while watching her drink. “You’ve been through so much because of me.”

“Don’t be.” Her reply is immediate. “I like you. It’s just what I have to deal with.”

Her head suddenly lolls forward until her forehead is pressed to his chest. He adjusts so she’s comfortably leaning against him. A part of him registers the fact that she told him she liked him, so she was probably still very drunk.

“It’s been a long year, hasn’t it?”

“So long,” she answers blearily.

The restaurant starts counting down to midnight. He wishes he didn’t fuck up so he could kiss her, give her that normal boyfriend experience that she deserves.

“Hey,” she says suddenly, straightening up. “Sorry I don’t say I like you enough.”

“You don’t have to--”

“And that this kiss is probably going to taste like cheap beer. I’ll make it up to you.”

When everyone shouts “One,” she kisses him and he doesn’t even notice how it tastes. Since they’d been together, he’d always been the one initiating kisses, holding her hand, putting his arm around her. She’d always responded but she never did it first.

“I like you,” she whispers against his lips when they’re done. “Don’t forget that, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out a lot sadder than I pictured it, but I guess that's basically 2018. I just felt like this entire time Aron was being more affectionate and Sujin's the kind to be awkward and push him away. She really likes him, obviously, but it's just hard for her to express it. Relationships, man.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Loves! So this is the end. I really didn’t think I would get here but here we are.
> 
> In the past few days, I’ve written a lot of letters thanking people for being with me through 2018, but I don’t think anything I can ever write can articulate how I feel about this year. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that this year has actually been unexpectedly awesome, not least because I got to spend it being a Love. I did so many things I never thought I’d do because Nuest inspired me, and out of all of those things, writing is the biggest, most important.
> 
> This fic has been more of an exercise than anything, and these past ten days have taught me a lot about the way I write and how my feelings work. And even if I still don’t think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, I really feel like I did it out of love - for Suron (because this ship is real, let me have this), for Nuest, and for writing. And that’s a comforting note to end my year on.
> 
> 2019 is a whole new adventure for our fandom and I can already tell that it’s going to be a very wild ride. But I’m looking forward to it, because I get to spend another year being in love. :)
> 
> Anyway, that’s my sappy schpiel. If you got this far, thank you so much for reading. No matter which fandom you’re from, I hope you have a beautiful year ahead. ^^


End file.
